"The posse is here, at least," said Charles noncommittally. She was finding something new in him. The fact that he could think and hide his thoughts from her was indeed very new; for, when she first met him, he had seemed all surface, all clean young manhood without a stain.
"Do you want me to see the six brave men again?" she asked, smiling, but really she was prying at his mind to get a clew of the truth. "Well, I'll come down."
And she went down the stairs with Charles Merchant beside her; he kept looking straight ahead, biting his lips, and this made her wonder. She began to hum a gay little tune, and the first bar made the man start. So she kept on. She was bubbling with apparent good nature when Charles, all gravity, opened the door of the living room.
The shades were drawn. The quiet in that room was a
deadly, living thing. And then she saw, on the sofa at one side of the place, a human form under a sheet.
"Charles!" whispered the girl. She put out her hand and touched his shoulder, but she could not take her eyes off that ghastly dead thing. "They—they—he's dead—Andrew Lanning! Why did you bring me here?"
"Take the cloth from his face," commanded Charles Merchant, and there was something so hard in his voice that she obeyed.
The sheet came away under her touch, and she was looking into the sallow face of Bill Dozier. She had remembered him because of the sad mustaches, that morning, and his big voice.
"That's what your romantic boy out of a book has done," said Charles Merchant. "Look at his work!"
But she dropped the sheet and whirled on him.